The intercontinental metagame: Formats and lattice discussion.

Figment · 2012-10-23, 10:35 AM

1. The inter-continental metagame.
One of the most compelling things about PlanetSide was the conquest side of the warfare, where you conquered territories beyond the single map. This gives the game a bigger purpose, an actual global war that connects all the various fights in the game into one, bigger fight, rather than a local and never ending feel of a map that just keeps changing but never gets anywhere. It gave players purpose and a sense of closure to conquer entire continents and a moment of rest, reflection, satisfaction and pride, plus more importantly, a good moment to "move on to the next fight, to the next continent" and shift sceneries. Nothing is more exhausting than not changing sceneries and being stuck on one continent endlessly makes fighting feel like a drag and a chore. I won't go into further detail, but if there's need for it, I can create an analysis of the historic PS1 lattice context later.

Now, this type of topic has been brought up before, but never in this amount of detail. The question isn't really IF it will return as the developers have indicated their interest in expanding the meta game over time, but how. And the bigger question is, what does this mean for the design and characteristics of continents in terms of the possibilities for linking between continents?

In order to explore this, first we'll look at how a meta game influences the amount of players per server and use that to determine some of the prefered characteristics of a good inter-continental meta game. Secondly, a large variety of concepts based on the current system is analysed in order to conclude and recommend how the future system should work.

The details of how Broadcast Warpgates (neutral warpgates that can be turned to control by one empire) behave upon being conquered is left for another discussion. It is however assumed that they will be neutralised when a continent is being locked (for example by requiring the occupation of certain amounts of territory on both sides of the warpgate to ensure an empire's control over the Broadcast Warpgate itself). This could be discussed in detail as well at some point regarding the effect of warpgate camping but should be left for a different, related topic.

2. Amount of players per metagame setup
To play the game on a large scale, you need two things: population and continents. These two things are directly linked to one another in two ways:

Total population: If you want to support a large amount of players you'll logically need many continents for them to exist and play on. However, it's not quite as spamming continents. I'll therefore first explain how the amount of players is linked to the amount of continents, before I'll explain what the current continent designs means for the initial and next batch of continents and the metagame you can have with those continents.
Population density: The higher the ratio of neutral continents (continents without a permanent foothold) over the total amount of continents, the more dispersed the fights will be. Too many neutral continents can result in a low population density. In low populations under the current adjecency rules, it is very easy to bypass defenders without any resistance. Defenders would be able to stall in some spot, but would be "out-ghosthacked" everywhere else, because there's no intra-continental lattice with clear choke points like there was in PlanetSide 1 (latticed bases), due to the increased freedom of movement the adjecency system provides. Density could be increased with a more strict intra-continent system, but that's for another discussion.

The benefit of having a higher ratio of neutral continents is that it becomes harder to prepare every warpgate for a coming invasion, allowing openings to expand and invade without such an amount of resistance that an invasion would fail. Meaning it allows an empire to gain momentum on a new continent.

All in all, the prefered solution is a system where a high amount of players can play, the fight isn't too predictable and yet not too dispersed. This is a tricky thing to create.

Everyone can understand that the amount of players is directly linked to the amount of continents. What is harder to grasp is that it is a little less straightforward than "we got X continents, thus we got room for X * MAXPOP = Y players.

In fact, the amount of players is related to a specific type of continent: continents with permanent footholds, places where players can continuously poor into the map.

2.1 Sanctuary Footholds
Currently the only type of place for that is "sanctuary footholds", which are the bases at a warpgate.

Per three sanctuary foothold, a meta-game can have 2.000 additional players. Why 2.000? Well, if 2.000 players per map is the limitation, then if you get trapped on one continent as an empire, you can't invade any of the other continents and thus are playing with a third of the maximum pop of one continent. To keep populations fair, the others cannot be allowed to have more pop than your maximum amount of pop in your worst case defense scenario.

Hence the population of a server is limited to the amount of continents you can fight on during a defense, which is directly linked to the amount of sanctuary footholds, or 2.000. This is also because in PS2, unlike in PS1, you could not HART in to "opened" continents and drain and hold a random base as there is no NTU system and the adjecency system prevents this at this time. There are also no alternate types of footholds to enter a continent.

To optimise the amount of players per server, it is possible to make every foothold permanent (Tri-Home Continents, one foothold per empire), but this would come at the cost of having no meta-game. Note that in the systems below, no use has been made of Bi-Home Continents. Bi-Home Continents could increase the amount of players per server as well, but would result in maps not being conquerable.

2.2 Alternative footholds
It is possible to increase the amount of players by adding in additional foothold routes to continents without actual footholds. One such an example would be to have naval invasion routes, including landings etc etc, which, in a future free-roaming world (which has been alluded to by SOE could happen: free naval travel between continents), could provide alternative entrances to a fight.

I'm sure this is going to need a lot of future thought, but I can already derive several key points from this: Though this would allow for larger populations on the server by making more fights available, the problem lies in population density control. If you can only start at permanent footholds like the sanctuary footholds of today, you would not be able to reach these entries to continents anyway! This would lead to the suggestion that we'll need actual Sanctuary Continents again. Global placement of Sanctuary Continents could influence the feasibility of naval invasion routes by proximity in addition to the "permanent foothold" and conquered/opened up "broadcast warpgate" routes. However, how do you stop an invasion force from entering a continent that already has 2000 players on it and is therefore maxed out in population already without making some sort of forced and unnatural limitation? Adding a random queue to travel a few meters ahead in a free, open world would be weird, especially if you're engaged in a naval fight at the time.

It would also require the continents to be designed with proper landing areas at the various coastlines. The amount of the options have to be taken into account per continent.

Population Density Management in a free roaming world is therefore a major concern and should not be taken light, but require proper planning in all aspects before it can be considered an option. In the following lattice analysis, the consideration of alternate means of entry is therefore not taken into account to limit the scope of the analysis and draw some more general conclusions. Not having any other links to said continent could be a good reason to open up the possibility of opening a sea lane to that continent. It could be that the free roaming world is limited to navigatable sea lanes and limited in other areas of the continent, or that the free roaming is not complete, but relative, where sea-gates or separate island links are created as alternative, off-shore invasion staging grounds.

3. Lattice variations under the current 3-link design
I've made the variations possible for 3-12 continents using 3 continent links, which is the Link Design used for the first generation of PS2 continents. Note that in the absence of more continents, servers are limited to variations on whatever continents exist, and with the concept behind the metagame, the player population per server (or depending on how it's executed in game, instance within a server, they could start with "parallel universes" within a server so you could still use the same character and still play with your outfit on the same server).

With that in mind, a lot of Continent Copies are used as placeholder for future continents. The benefit of this is that as more continents are added, the game could be updated without having to completely redesign the meta game itself, while having larger servers with a metagame. The drawback is that it makes maps feel more like linked instances, than part of a world if you just use one map of each kind. Which of course, is always the end goal.

In the images below, a number of meta-game intercont lattice setups are depicted which are pretty much most if not all feasible options from 3 to 13 continents. You'll note that there are no options for 4 and 8 continents. Why did I skip four continents? If you ask people like the person below, this would seem like a logical thing to do, right?

Originally Posted by Illtempered

If they give us at least 4 more maps, develop the meta-game(which is non-existent atm), and work out the major bugs I'll be happy.

Well, if you want a meta game with four maps, you'd need a fourth continent with six links. Why? Because you have 6 open links from the "Home Continents" (continents with a sanctuary on them). With three Home Continents, you can't link each home continent to another home continent and then also link to a fourth continent (two would have an open link, one would link to both other home conts and that's not a fair setup). For any setup, all empires would have to be linked the same way to enemy and neutral continents, or other home continents of their own. Hence the amount of gates must always match symmetrically.

3.1 CONCEPT A - 3 continents - 1 sanc / empire
Let's start with concept A and go down the list. Concept A is the most straightforward thing you can do with the current setup. There are however a lot of consequences to this type of setup.

The first is that your population is limited to 2000 players, but with just three continents, they would have a rather high density.

In this setup, at most fights on two continents would occur with at most some laggards straggling to hold on to territory on a third continent after having been cut off from the home continent link. In the most balanced setup, half an empire fights another half, who also fights the other half of the other empire. In theory this could mean a back and forth through one continent link on either side of the continent. But in practice we find that empires concentrate their forces and let another empire roam free. This would lead to constant double teaming of full zergs and three way stalemates as we have now on single continents with some skirmishes on the other, till one empire is kicked off and either comes back or invades the other empire (who then either loses their own continent or is forced to retreat and is then subsequently the next empire to get double teamed).

The problem with concept A is that there are no real options for each empire to expand aside from two directions. As a result, this will lead to frequent warpgate camping, particularly on specific continents where you reach an enemy warpgate fast as we've seen on Esamir, but in the worst case scenario, all three empires have complete control over their own continent and everyone is camping one another till one let's a zerg in. This would lead to a boring and poor meta-game.

It could mean that the intra-continent has to change, for example by having more territories close to the warpgate and weigh their resource gain much heavier from those in the middle. The main conclusion could be that when one uses three continents tops, the current Tri-Home Continent setup without external links is the best way to handle things till a certain amount of continents is available if it is unwanted to have a meta game with Copy Continents.

3.2 CONCEPT B - 5 continents - 1 sanc / empire
This is the first concept with two buffer continents in between the home continents. The map is still only suited for 2.000 players. However, the population is more dispersed and warpgate camping becomes less feasible since there are more gates to camp. In practice, the more gates there are, the harder it is to camp them. This leads to more dynamic fights as empires can't pin down enemy invasions everywhere. The first conclusion is it is therefore good to have neutral continents in between.

The main challenge though is one that we'll see return in every following setup: too few continents are currently available for this setup, hence we would have to make use of duplicates of continents (the so called Copy Continents, the psychological effects of which have been explained earlier). If one uses copy continents, it is important to try to minimise these effects. This can be done by at least trying to have each continent link to a different type of continent. With five continents and only three alternative continents available, this is not possible and two home continents would link once to one continent of the same kind.

3.3 CONCEPT C - 6 continents - 2 linked sancs / empire
With 6 continents, being a multiplication of three, it is possible to use only home continents and therefore increase the total amount of players on the server to 4.000 while including a meta-game.

Since in most situations the link between both home continents of the same empire would be under control of said empire, you basically get the same effect as with concept A: predictable invasions and warpgate camping. The scale of the continent (now two continents) has simply been increased "with a choke point and an extra sanc". Players will have more optional continents to play on though, especially if you don't make each empire have a set of similar continents.

3.4 CONCEPT D - 6 continents - 2 linked sancs / empire
Again room for 4.000 players. Pretty much the same considerations as E, just that there is no united front from the two factions. It would be a real challenge for an empire to link up with itself, but it would in theory be possible, though they'd be very stretched out and spread over many continents at once.

In essence, the same effects as with concept A would occur once again, with one major difference: An empire could choose to focus on expansion from one of its sanctuaries, using the warpgates of one home continent and only defending with a smaller force elsewhere. Either way, it would lead to more dynamic fights than under C.

3.5 CONCEPT E - 6 continents - 1 sanc / empire
Concept E tackles one of the problem that concept B had (not linking to a buffer continent of the same kind and always to another continent), while creating a new problem: left over links. As you can see with the big green triangle, there are three warpgates left.

You could leave these warpgates empty, or you could create an alternate rule: capture the territories around two of these neutral warpgates to activate them. This could create an additional global challenge and strategic element.

The downside of course is that you can only use 2.000 players.

Please note that for simplicity reasons, this setup is not considered for larger systems of continents.

3.6 CONCEPT F - 7 continents - 1 sanc / empire
By adding an additional neutral continent, the problem of concept E is solved. However, a new problem arises: a third duplicate of one single continent is now required.

Figment · 2012-10-23, 10:36 AM

3.7 CONCEPT G - 9 continents - 1 sanc / empire / circle linked
Far more options and straight forward. With just 2.000 players and 6/9 continents being neutral, this dilutes the population density a lot though in relation to the adjecency system. In relation to PlanetSide 1, this would still be a higher population density, but PlanetSide 1 had a lattice to concentrate forces more.

3.8 CONCEPT H - 9 continents - 1 sanc / empire / cross linked
The only difference with the setup above is that it is easier to go from one side of the map to the other. Hence three ways can occur more easily all over the global map and corners are less often locked.

3.9 CONCEPT I - 10 continents - 2 sancs / empire / buffer center
This concept allows for 4.000 players by linking two enemy home continents directly to one another. A buffer continent separates them from the next enemy homecontinent set and through a middle continent from the opposite side with another of their own home continents. Fights in such a setup would be relatively dynamic, as there is a lot more room for varied fights and unpredictable invasions, allowing to hold some continents for a while, etc.

Concept I has a similar issue to concept F, in that it has an extra continent in the middle. Another bigger issue is that with only three continents available, the middle continent would likely link to three continents of the same kind, unless sets of enemy Home Continents would be the same continent. That may make it feel a bit more artificial than some of the other setups.

3.10 CONCEPT J - 9 continents - 3 sancs / empire
Basically concept D with room for 6.000 players. Enough has been said about this type of setup in terms of gameplay. This setup could of course be infinitely expanded by simply continuously adding strings of three home continents, but with more continents the chance of moving to another would become smaller. It would also feel very artificial.

3.11 CONCEPT K - 12 continents - 2 sancs / empire
Concept K solves the issues of concept I and some issues of D by adding buffer continents in between. The only thing is it dilutes the players a bit more over the continents than I, as there's still only room for 4.000 players. It just requires four Copy Continents (3x4), which is a bit much. Of course, with one new continent with three links, you would have only three duplicate sets instead of four (4x3).

3.12 CONCEPT L - 13 continents - 3 sancs / empire
This is only the second meta game which allows 6.000 players per server. it too requires a lot of copies and then an additional spare. It is based on the same setup as I, the problem is that each empire is trapped between two empires somewhere and had little room to expand on that side. On the upside, it does mean that there's always fights going on somewhere and continents can be captured.

This concept is however really pushing the duplicate cont system to its limits.

3.13 Other
Not shown are setups of 12 continents in ring shape consisting of some variants of summations of C and D. As mentioned under J, that's really pushing that ring system. Those systems could lead to 8.000 players per server, but would have little benefit over separate servers consisting of C and D aside from more players.

4. Conclusions and recommendations.
For mere testing purposes (particularly once capturable warpgates are being created), it would be good to have at least tested some meta game mechanics on short notice. For this I would recommend a separate server with a setup akin to D, E or F.

For larger servers, it seems to me that the tri-link continents are insufficient. Continents with 2 (duo), 4 (quad), 5 (penta) and even 6 (hex) links could be created to generate a large variety of systems and complement the three (tri) link continents. However, it should be kept in mind that continents with 5 links or more may become uncontrollable and constantly reset, making it one everlasting, chaotic battle. That would not be appealing to players. 5 links should probably be considered the maximum. The advantage of continents with even amounts of links is that it is easier to "complete" links if you have both uneven and even continents.

Duo-link continents could only be used as buffer continents and could therefore have a low priority since they can be made relatively fast, they would house less players and could thus be smaller and could always be fit somewhere in a lattice. They would however, never be able to complement a lattice plan when there's a link missing.

It would therefore be best to focus first on creating continents with quad-links, since with combinations of three and four links, you can create wildly varying lattices in far more complex and dynamic combinations than is possible with tri-link continents as the lattice below shows for what could have been the PlanetSide 1 lattice.

If more alternate entrances are added in the future of the game, the amount of landing points per continent must therefore be considered. In which case it will also become important to have a Sanctuary as staging ground, plus a good pop density control system. It could be made so that Naval Landings are only an option under very specific circumstances, for instance: not having any other links to said continent.

Figment · 2012-10-23, 10:39 AM

TL;DR!

[space reserved for future recommendations]

VaderShake · 2012-10-23, 11:05 AM

Hmm.....this post looks like there is math involved and stuff....however I like pictures so I want to look at the post...but that whole math thing is still there?? Hmm...I think I will go look at porn for a bit and see if someone adds more pics to this post....

Crator · 2012-10-23, 11:23 AM

Good thing there's no math invovled then. Unless you consider counting to 13 a math problem. The #s are used to associate the ideas to the diagrams.

Mutant · 2012-10-23, 11:52 AM

I would like to see sanctuaries become orbiting stations; 1 for each faction.

Then have the "home" continent connections change over a period of time (1-2 weeks?) as the stations obit the planet.

This will help keep things that little bit fresher.

Or if sanctuaries really can not be allowed back then make it so there is a remote link satellite or something giving the same effect of slowly changing home footholds.

elementHTTP · 2012-10-23, 12:10 PM

HOLY BANANAS !!!

what is this science

good work !

Hosp · 2012-10-23, 12:30 PM

First and foremost: This assumes they keep with the warpgate sancs. Upon the 3rd continent being released this makes sense and will continue to make sense until 5 or 6 continents are in play. Then (as higby mentioned a couple times) they'll probably be switching to the old style sancs.

After that happens (assuming they don't go and do something outta left field) the arrangement of the continents will have be to in a style of one of the many pictures displayed. It's nothing new and will more than likely happen at the risk of one faction screaming bloody murder at the devs if it doesn't.

VaderShake · 2012-10-23, 01:23 PM

Originally Posted by Crator

Good thing there's no math invovled then. Unless you consider counting to 13 a math problem. The #s are used to associate the ideas to the diagrams.

Well I only have 10 mangled fingers and I'm too lazy to take my shoes off so my max math apptitude at this moment only goes to 10.

Mox · 2012-10-23, 03:54 PM

It is simple.
Foodholds on every continent will ruin intercontinental warfare.
Sancfoodholds (just 1 or 2 foodhold on specific conts per faction) wont work regarding the distribution of players on the conts.
The only proper solution is the return of the classic ps1 sanc. I agree that spacestations hovering over auraxis and therefore influencing the intercontinental lattice would be an interesting expansion of the classic ps1 sancs.

thegreekboy · 2012-10-23, 10:53 PM

Wow. Great work obviously ridicuous amounts of thought put into this. SOE should seriously consider this. Tweet Smed and higby this thread.

GLaDOS · 2012-10-23, 11:06 PM

Originally Posted by Mox

It is simple.
Foodholds on every continent will ruin intercontinental warfare.
Sancfoodholds (just 1 or 2 foodhold on specific conts per faction) wont work regarding the distribution of players on the conts.
The only proper solution is the return of the classic ps1 sanc. I agree that spacestations hovering over auraxis and therefore influencing the intercontinental lattice would be an interesting expansion of the classic ps1 sancs.

Why would sancfootholds not work? People say that if a continent was locked, then the people would have nowhere to go, but with a sanc all they could do is just piss around in the sanc, waiting for a continent to unlock. How is that different? Also, I'm pretty sure the maximum amount of players on the server will be less than the maximum amount allowed on the continents in total, so people will actually be able to switch continents and such. I think it's already like that, actually (but don't quote me on that).

Figment · 2012-10-24, 04:05 AM

Originally Posted by GLaDOS

Why would sancfootholds not work? People say that if a continent was locked, then the people would have nowhere to go, but with a sanc all they could do is just piss around in the sanc, waiting for a continent to unlock. How is that different? Also, I'm pretty sure the maximum amount of players on the server will be less than the maximum amount allowed on the continents in total, so people will actually be able to switch continents and such. I think it's already like that, actually (but don't quote me on that).

Think I've already covered the most important reasons why the metagame benefits from having a Sanctuary in section 2 and 4, but perhaps it doesn't just suffice to say there are additional benefits to sanctuary.

Let's go over some of them.

Sanctuaries offer different benefits to footholds as staging grounds
It is better to queue for a continent from within game, than out of game as you can see who is online, which continent you want to go for and can socialise in the meantime, plus you can preoccupy yourself with something as you wait.
You could replenish resources and obtain equipment here while locked out of fighting, preparing for an invasion.
Once home continents are poplocked, people could still spawn on Sanc to get into combat: they could still use instant action to other continents with hot spots or HART drop pods (depending on the options). Getting locked into sanc
A sanctuary continent has more space than a foothold and could hold a much larger empire
Sanctuaries could be used as a staging ground for invading through alternate non-warpgate routes (and without being observed early on as at some point warpgates will be stormed once the inter-continental fight starts)
Sanctuaries can fulfill social and emersion functions, here you have to think of things like:
- Simply being (socially) afk without taking up spots in a combat situation: transported to sanctuary, rather than being forced to log out and log back in.
- Personalised outfit barracks (imagine you can build your own barracks with buildings representing any outfit specialisations of your outfit)
- Feels like coming home and a resting place away from combat
- Encourages empire pride by providing a home to defend
- Imagine the sense of scale: imagine the images of the entire empire (pop for all continent) gathered together for group shots, parades etc.
- Outfit recruitment (imagine being able to purchase outfit advertising space with Station Cash)
- Outfit training (have training areas with different types of buildings and bases without being interrupted by enemies)

And I'm sure there's more you can do here that's better done on a non-combat zone, just the D-Day preparation images alone though and then seeing them all move out at once at the order of a commander? That's just an incredible sight.

Mox · 2012-10-24, 05:02 AM

Originally Posted by GLaDOS

Why would sancfootholds not work? People say that if a continent was locked, then the people would have nowhere to go, but with a sanc all they could do is just piss around in the sanc, waiting for a continent to unlock. How is that different? Also, I'm pretty sure the maximum amount of players on the server will be less than the maximum amount allowed on the continents in total, so people will actually be able to switch continents and such. I think it's already like that, actually (but don't quote me on that).

Notice my definition of "Sanc foodhold":
A Sanc foodhold is not a standard foodhold as we can see it today.
The idea of foodholds in general is that on each continent each faction has one foodhold.
The number "Sanc foodholds" on the other hand is more limited. Lets say each faction has just one sanc foodhold (e.g., TR on Amerish, VS on Indar, NC on Esamir). The links between the continents are provided by warpgates amd not by foodholds as it work today. The problem regarding the distribution of players with this system it that if a faction reaches the pop cap its homecontinent (the continent with its Sanc foodhold) member of this faction cant even login.

Therefore, we need an old school (ps1) Sanc system. This kind of Sanc is an instanced place which is independend form the pop caps of of the continents and allows player to log in and let them choose a cont on which the pop cap is not reached yet.